Jet:
Convair B-58 / Avro Vulcan (it's a tie)
McDonnell F-4

Piston:
Supermarine Spitfire
Douglas A-26

A-26 Invader - what's not to love about 5,000 HP, single pilot, aerobatic, ground attacking monster.

But I have to agree with others that the A-6 Intruder was amazing. That's what I would have wanted to have flown in the Navy in the 90s.

Hawker Tempest. With a chin like that... woof! And it was the only WWII allied fighter that could catch the buzz bombs in level flight.

Zeke

I guess I'll have to jump in here:
Piston
Bomber: PB4Y-1
Fighter: F4U (Spitfire close second)

Jet
Bomber: Fondness for the B-52 following 12/24/1972
Fighter: F-8 (is there any other?)

Hawker Tempest. With a chin like that... woof! And it was the only WWII allied fighter that could catch the buzz bombs in level flight.

Zeke[/quote]
Not true the P-51 and the Spitfire also caught the V1s in flight

Jets leave me cold. None of them do anything for me other than perhaps the F-86.

Pistons? Here's one to google. Polykarpov I-16. Pretty much was out-classed performance wise at the start of the war. Tiny and cute none the less. Its claim to fame is that it was the first fighter aircraft to have retractable gear and a cantilevered wing. And, hey, don't forget the open cockpit.

The A1-E saved my bacon on the ground a couple times. I loved the loiter time and the eyes on the ground. That would probably point to the A-10 today, but I never actually had one support me. They were making them as I left service after RVN. CAS aircraft will always have a special place in my heart. I did fly the Cobra, and it was great in the right circumstances, but lacked the penetration capability and range of the A1-E. With full ordinance, which we seldom carried, very limited range and loiter time in the Cobra (AH-1G)

No love for the P-47 here? Its a sad group here.

The A1-E saved my bacon on the ground a couple times. I loved the loiter time and the eyes on the ground. That would probably point to the A-10 today, but I never actually had one support me. They were making them as I left service after RVN. CAS aircraft will always have a special place in my heart. I did fly the Cobra, and it was great in the right circumstances, but lacked the penetration capability and range of the A1-E. With full ordinance, which we seldom carried, very limited range and loiter time in the Cobra (AH-1G)

P-47 was a great airplane it just got overshadowed by the P-51 in Europe and the P-38 in the Pacific. 56th FG had the most aerial victories of any the 8th AF FGs (16 in all ) and they were the only group NOT to transfer to the Mustang.

OK, OK, I grant you a cleaned up F-8U in flight was about the prettiest thing in the skies, and this is coming from a Phantom driver, but something like 86% of them were lost to accidents. The Phantom to me always looked like it should be wearing a spiked collar with a tag that said "Make my day", just a nasty looking junkyard dog but she could do more things well and take care of you and I wouldn't have wanted to trust my tender buetocks to anything else.

Jet bomber, gotta go with the Bone. Can anything else be so awe inspiring? They just raise the hair on the back of my neck every time I see one.

Prop fighter-sorry but it would be a tossup between the Bearcat and the FW-190.

Prop bomber-where's the love for the B-25 Mitchell? Looks, personality and the star participant in one of the most important and daring missions in US military history. After that, the SBD Dauntless that blew the Japanese carrier force to hell at Midway.

We had multiple guys shoot down 5 or more in a day. And the FW-190D was a late entrant into the war and didn't do much. The P-51H had the same speed and was the fastest piston powered fighter of the war. It too did nothing as it was a late entry as well as the Bearcat and Tigercat.

Not belittling any of those great pilots in WW II but one record that bears mentioning is the 28 confirmed kills by Saburo Sakai, a Zero pilot in the Japanese Navy. All of those kill were against other fighters. I can see attacking large concentrations of poorly defended, less maneuverable bombers and transports and possibly scoring more than five kills in one mission but to consistently score against aircraft of roughly comparable performance that are also hunting you is most impressive.

Interestingly, he became an avowed pacifist after the war.

No WW1 fans? I always liked the SPAD XIII flown by Frank Luke. I made a model of it when I was a kid. Unfortunately, my brother's Fokker DVII shot it down

A26/P47 with Mosquito in between. I think the Thunderbolt would have made a heck of an impact in the first part of the Korean War.

Favourite fighters: Faith, Hope and Charity. Three Gladiators vs two air forces. Yes they lost 2/3'rds of them, but they put up a hell of a fight. Faith survived, and is in a museum in Malta.

Favourite bomber: Having just read "A Thousand Shall Fall" by Murray Peden, I'll vote for the Shorts Stirling. A solid, reliable load carrier - the fatal flaw was the cruise altitude making them flak magnets.